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TJIH CO'JiJVBZZ UjyiYJaiiSITr 



Recount of tl)c proceedings 



AT THE 



INAUGURATION 



October yth 1868 





ITHACA 

AT THE UNIFERSITT PRESS 

MDCCCLXIX 




^l)c Jnouguration. 



By the Charter of the Cornell University, the Legislature of the State of 
New York required the Institution to be open for the admission and in- 
struction of students at a period not later than October, 1868. The Trus- 
tees and other officers of the University made every effort to comply with 
this requirement. The buildings were advanced as rapidly as possible ; 
the President of the University spent several months in Europe for the 
purpose of purchasing books and apparatus ; twenty resident and six non- 
resident professors were elected; and the various collections and cabinets 
were partially arranged. It was determined that the formal opening pro- 
ceedings should take place on Wednesday, the seventh of October. A 
schedule of the day's exercises had been previously issued, and a large 
number of people, representing the various portions of the United 
States, gathered in the village of Ithaca. In accordance with the pub- 
lished programme the ceremonies began with an assemblage of the Trus- 
tees, President and Faculty elect, and citizens generally, held in the Hall 
of the Cornell Library, Ithaca, at 10 o'clock in the morning. After an in- 
troductory prayer by the Rev. T. C. Strong, D. D., of Ithaca, the Plonor- 
able Ezra Cornell delivered the opening address. 

ADDRESS OF MR. CORNELL. 

MR. Chairman, Citizens and Friends : — I fear that many of you 
have visited Ithaca at this time to meet with disappointment. If 
you came as did a friend recently from Pennsylvania, "expecting 
to find a finished institution," you will look around, be disappointed with 
what you see, and report, on your return to your homes, as he did, "I 
did not find one single thing finished." 

Such, my friends, is not the entertainment we invited you to. We did 
not expect to have a "single thing finished," we did not desire it, and we 
have not directed our energies to that end. It is the commencement that 
we have now in hand. We did expect to have commenced an institution of 
learning which will mature in the future to a great degree of usefulness, 
which will place at the disposal of the industrial and productive classes of 
society the liest facilities for the acquirement of practical knowledge and 
mental culture, on such terms as the hmited means of the most humble 
can command. 

I. hope we have laid the foundation of an institution which shall combine 



The Inauguration. 



practical with lil^eval education, which shall fit the youth of our country for 
the professions, the farms, the mines, the manufactories, for the investiga- 
tions of science, and for mastering all the practical questions of life with 
success and honor. 

I believe that we have made the beginning of an institution ^\•hicll will 
prove highly beneficial to the poor young men and the poor young women 
of our country. This is one thing which we have not finished, but in the 
course of time we hope to reach such a state of perfection as will enable any 
one by honest efforts and earnest labor to secure a thorough, practical, sci- 
entific or classical education. The individual is Ijetter, society is better, 
and the state is better, for the culture of the citizen; therefore we desire to 
extend the means for the culture of all. 

I trust that we have made the ' beginning of an institution which shall 
bring science more directly to the aid of agriculture, and other branches of 
productive labor. Chemistry has the same great stores of wealth in reserve 
for agriculture that it has lavished so profusely upon the arts. We must 
instruct the young farmer how to avail himself of this hidden treasure. 

The veterinarian will shield him against many of the losses which are fre- 
quent in his flocks and herds, losses which are now submitted to as matters 
of course by the uneducated farmer, and which, in the aggregate, amount to 
nillions of dollars every year in our own State alone. 

The entomologist must arm him for more successful warfare in defence of 
his growing crops, as the ravages of insects upon both grain and fruit have 
become enormous, resulting, also, in the loss of many millions of dollars 
each year. 

Thus, in whatever direction we turn, we find ample opportunity for the 
applications of science in aid of the toiling millions. May we not hope that 
we have made the beginning of an institution which will strengthen the arm 
of the mechanic and multiply his powers of production through the agency 
of a better cultivated brain? Any person who visits our Patent Office at 
Washington, and contemplates the long halls stored with rejected mod- 
els, will realize that our mechanics have great need of this aid. 

The farmer is also enriched by increasing the knowledge and power of 
the mechanic. Mechanism, as applied to agriculture, was the great motive 
power which enabled the x^merican farmers to feed the nation \\hile it was 
struggling for existence against the late wicked rebellion, and it will enable 
them to pay the vast debts incurred by the nation while crushing that rebel- 
lion. This is an inviting field in which we must laljor most earnestly. The 
mechanic should cease the fruitless effort "to bore an auger hole with a 
gimlet." 

I desire that this shall prove to be the beginning of an institution, which 
shall furnish better means for the culture of all men of every calling, of 
every aim ; which shall make men more truthful, more honest, more virtu- 
ous, more noble, more manly ; which shall give them higher purposes, and 
more lofty aims, qualifying them to serve their fellow men better, preparing 
them to serve society better, training them to be more useful in their rela- 
tions to the state, and to better comprehend their higher and holier relations 
to their families and their God. It shall be our aim, and our constant effort 
to maice true Christian men, without dwarfing or paring them down to fit 
the narrow gauge of any sect. 

Finally, I trust we have laid the foundation of an University — "an insti- 
tution where any person can find instruction in any study." 



Lieutenant-Governor Woodford' s Address. ^ 

Such have heen our purposes. In that direction we have put forth our 
efforts, and on the future of such an institution we rest our hopes. If we 
liave been successful in our be^rinning, to that extent and no further may 
we hope to be encouraged by the award of your approvah We have pur- 
posed that the finishing shall be the work of the future, and we ask that 
its approval or condemnation shall rest upon the quality of its maturing 
fruit. 

To take the leadership of this great work we have selected a gentleman 
and a scholar, who, though young in years, we present before you to-day for 
inauguration, with entire confidence that tlie "right man is in the right 
place." 

We have also selected a faculty which I trust will very soon convince you 
that we have not thus early in the enterprise commenced blundering. They 
are in the main young men, and they are quite content to be judged by their 
works. 

Invoking the blessing of Heaven upon our undertaking, we commend our 
cause to the scrutiny and the judgment of the American people. 

At the close of Mr. Cornell's address, the Charter and seal of the Uni- 
versity and the keys of the University buildings were placed in a casket of 
carved oak, bound with steel, and handed to the Honorable Stewart T. 
Woodford, Lieutenant-Governor of the State. 

ADDRESS OF LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR WOODFORD. 

The time has come when a good education must be practical and benefi- 
cent. That education will be the best and most beneficent which shall 
be the most practical. Science and the highest art can do no better 
than to dignify labor and lighten the burdens of toil. That scholar will 
most worthily bear his college diploma who shall do most to bless and ele- 
vate the working man and the working woman. That University will 
most fitly and fully answer the aspirations of democratic America whose 
graduates shall add one kernel to the bearing capacity of an ear of corn ; 
whose science shall make "two blades of grass to grow where gi-ew but 
one before ;" whose educated skill shall strew one new flower in the path 
of the humble, and fling one more sunbeam into the cottage of the lowly. 
Such scholars may Cornell train. Such a University may we found this 
day. Gentlemen of the Trustees and Faculty, I congratulate you and my- 
self, a young man, that the beginnings of our University have been in- 
trusted to young men like your President and Faculty. I congratulate you 
that this institution, the ideas of whose foundation are to work out so much 
of practical good in the years to come, is not to be tied or hampered by ob- 
solete prejudices, but that young men, bringing to their work all the love 
of their young hearts and the energies of their young brains, are to make 
our University a living power in her very youth. 

The Lieutenant-Governor here administered the oath of office to Presi- 
dent White, and delivering into the President's hands the casket, said : — 
"Now, Sir, in behalf of the State of New York and of our honored founder, 
Ezra Cornell, I place in your keeping this casket, containing the keys, 
which represent the temporal estate of the University, the Charter and laws. 



I'he Inauguration. 



for its government, and the broad seal of the University Corporation, and 
declare you duly installed as President of the Cornell University." 
ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT WHITE. 

SIX YEARS ago, in the most bitter hour of the Republic, in her last hour 
as many thought, amid most desperate measures of war, the councils of 
the United States gave thought and work to a far-reaching measure of 
])eace. They made provision for a new system of advanced education ; 
they cut this system loose from some o!d ideas under wdiich education had 
been groaning; they grafted int:> it some new ideas for which e lucation 
had been longing ; they so arranged it that every S>ate might enjoy it ; they 
imposed but few general conditions, and these grounded in right reason; 
they fettered it with no unworthy special conditions; they planned it broadly; 
they endowed it munificently. 

This is one of the great things in American history — nay, one of the 
great things in the world-history. In all the annals of republics, there is 
no more significant utterance of confidence in national destiny out from the 
midst of national calamity. 

Four years ago, war still raging, a citizen of this .State, an artisan who 
had wrought his way to wealth, but who in wealth forgot not the labors and 
longings of poverty, offered to supplement this public gift with a piivate gift 
not less munificent. He alloyed it with no whimseys, he fettered it with no 
crotchets, he simply asked that his bounty might carry out a plan large and 
fair. 

Three years ago the State of New York, after some groping, accepted 
these gifts, refused to scatter and waste them, concentrated them in a single 
effort for higher education and fixed on a system of competitive examina- 
tions to bring under the direct advantages of this education the most worthy 
students in every corner of her domain. Six months afterwards the author- 
ities to whom the new effort was entrusted met in this pleasant village. 
Among them were the highest officers of the State. He who had offered 
the private endowment appeared before them. He not only redeemed his 
promise — he did more — he added to it princely gifts which he had not prom- 
ised ; more than that, his earnest manner showed that he was about to give 
something more precious by far — his whole life. So was founded the Cor- 
nell University. 

Months followed and this same man did for the State what she could not 
do for herself; he applied all his shrewdness and energy to placing the en- 
dowment from the United States on a better footing. Other .States had 
sold the scrip with which they were endowed at rates ruinously low ; the 
Founder of this University aided the State to make such an investment that 
its endowment developed in far larger measure than the most sanguine ever 
dared hope. 

Such, gentlemen of the Board of Trustees and fellow citizens, are the 
simple landmarks in the progress of this institution hitherto — not to weary 
you with a long detail of minor labors and trials — such is the history in the 
chronological order, the order of facts ; let me now briefly present it in log- 
ical order, in the order of ideas. And, first of all, I would present certain 

FOUNDATION IDEAS. 

On these is the structure based — these attach it firmly to the age and 
people for which we hope to rear it. 



President White's Address. 7 

Foremost of these stands that cornei- stone embedded in the foundations 
by the original Charter from Congress — the close union of liberal ami praeti- 
cal education. 

Hitherto, with hardly an exception, the higher education had been either 
liberal or practical ; by that instrument, provision was made for education 
both liberal and practical. 

The two great sources of national wealth, agriculture and the mechanic 
arts, were especially named as leading objects to be kept in view. At the 
same time narrowness was prevented by clauses providing that other ob- 
jects of study, necessary to broad and high education, should be attended to. 
No charter more timely in its special aims, more broad in its general aims 
could have been granted. 

In entire harmony with spirit and letter of this original Charter was the 
next foundation idea. 

It was put forth by the Founder of the University himself, and in language 
the simplest and plainest. It gave a complete theory of university instruc- 
tion. Said Ezra Cornell — '"/ wotilil found an institiitiomvlure any per- 
son can find instruction in any study.'''' 

Devoted to practical pursuits he recognized the fact that there must be a 
union of the scientific and the aesthetic with the practical in order to produce 
results worthy of such an enterprise. The idea then of those who planned 
for the institution in the national halls at Washington, and the ideas of this 
man who had thought over this problem in farm and workshop on the 
shores of Cayuga Lake, were in unison. 

Into these foundation principles was now wrought another at which every 
earnest man should rejoice, the principle of unsectarian education. 

Perhaps no one thing has done more to dwarf the system of higher edu- 
cation in this land than the sectarian principle. As the result of much ob- 
servation and thought I declare my firm belief that, but for our enslave- 
ment to this unfortunate principle, we would long since have had great free 
universities, lil)eral and practical, the largest, the most ample in equipment, 
most earnest in effort, the most vigorous in thought the world has yet seen. 
I believe they would have had a vastly stronger hold upon the people, and 
an infinitely more valuable result on national education in science, litera- 
ture, art and practical pursuits. 

I do not say that the sectarian principle has given no good results. It 
has done good and great good. It built colleges which otherwise would 
not have been built ; it stimulated mSn who otherwise would have remained 
inactive ; it incited labor and sacrifice which otherwise would have been 
wanting ; but , the time has come when we want more than they have 
given us. 

I do not deny the earnestness of the founders and promoters of these col- 
leges. I do not deny the great attainments and self-sacrifice of multitudes 
of their professors. I do not deny that tliey are doing good work to-day. 
But I do deny that all the work necessary can be done by such means. I 
deny that any university fidly worthy of that great name can ever be founded 
upon the platfonn nf any one sect or combination of sects. Do you ask 
why ? I point you to the simplest facts in educational history. I will not 
trouble you with the .^rgument in the abstract; look at it in the concrete. 
One of the most honored college presidents of New York was excluded 
from teaching natural philosophy in a New England faculty l)ecause he 
was an Episcopalian. One of the most honored college presidents of New 



8 The Inauguration. 

England was excluded from teaching Greek in a New York facult)- I^ecaiise 
he was an Unitarian. One of the most renowned of college presidents in 
the Western States was rejected from a collegiate position in this State be- 
cause he was a Presbyterian. One of the main college presidencies of New 
England remained a long time within these latter years vacant. Why ? 
There were scholars, jurists, statesmen in that commonwealth, who would 
have felt honored by the position. Why were they not called ? Simply 
liecause the statutes of that University required the presiding officer to be a 
clergyman of a particular sect, and no one of them happened to be found 
willing or able to undertake the duties. One of the largest colleges in this 
State rejected one of the best of modern chemists because he was not of a 
certain sect. A noted college in a neighboring State rejected one of our 
most noted mathematicians and astronomers for the same reason. Nor are 
these extreme cases. There are those within the sound of my voice who have 
seen a college long suffering for want of a professor in a certain department 
difficult to fill. A man of the required sect was at last found admirably fitted, 
but this man was rejected. Why ? Solely because he was not of a certain 
peculiar party of that particular sect. 

All this is the evil growth from an evil germ. From the days when 
Henry Dunster, the first president of the first college in America, a devoted 
scholar, a thorough builder, an earnest man, was driven from his seat with 
ignominy and with cruelty because Cotton Mather declared him "fallen into 
the briars of anti-pnedobaptism," the sectarian spirit has been the worst foe 
of enlarged university education. 

Place the strongest men under a spirit like this and they are robbed of 
half their strength. Under such a system are wanting the very foundations 
of an University, because the only such foundations are foundations of 
liberty. 

The fundamental idea of the institution which we hope to found is differ- 
ent. It accepts fully the principle of religious freedom in higher educa- 
tion as we all receive it in general education. Its Founder had quietly and 
characteristically announced this Avhen he made to this town his splendid 
gift of a public library, and selected as Trustees a body of sound-hearted, 
sound-minded citizens, regardless of creed or party, adding to the Board the 
clergyman of every church in the town, Catholic and Protestant, orthodox 
and unorthodox. 

This idea the Legislature of this Statg fixed firmly in our Charter. They 
fixed it and clenched it ; for there are two clauses. The first clause is — 
"and a majority of the Trustees shall never be of any one religious sect or 
of no religious sect." The second is — "and no professor, officer or student 
shall ever be accepted or rejected on account of any religious or political 
views which he may or may not hold." On that ground we stand. The 
Faculty now assembled is in the best sense a Christian Faculty, yet it is of 
no one dogma — almost every religious body is represented. 

But it may be said that the system is unchristian. What then is your 
whole system of common schools? It is founded on the same basis. What 
then is your whole system of government ? It is carried on in the same 
manner. 

Do you trust to sectarian teaching alone to save Christianity ? The gi^eat 
deists of the last century and the great rationalists of this century were al- 
most without exception educated in schools where sectarian tests were rigid. 
\'oltaire, and Cjibbon, and Diderot, and Renan, and Colenso were so educated. 



President White s Address. 9 

But, it is said, that an institution for advanced education must be secta- 
rian to be successful. Here, again, we will turn from theory to practice. 
1 point you to the State University of Michigan ; it is young ; it is insuffi- 
ciently endowed ; it has had trials ; it is in one of the smaller and less 
wealthy states, and worse than that, in an unappreciative state. Yet it is 
to-day confessedly the greatest of educational successes in our country. It 
is unsectarian, but it is one of the best bulwarks of noble and enlightened 
Christianity in that commonwealth. 

On that same basis we take our stand. We appeal from sectarians to 
Christians ; we appeal from the sectarian in every man to the Christian in 
every man. Nor shall we discard the idea of worship. This has never 
been dreamed of in our plans. The first plan of buildings and the last em- 
braced a University .chapel. We might indeed find little encouragement in 
college chapel services as they are often conducted ; prayers dogmatic or 
ceremonial ; praise with doggerel hymns, thin music and feeble choir ; the 
great body of students utterly listless or worse. 

From yonder chapel shall daily ascend praise and prayer. Day after day 
it shall recognize in man not only mental and moral but religious want. We 
will labor to make this a Christian institution — a sectarian institution may 
it never be. We take this stand in perfect good will to all colleges and uni- 
versities based upon the opposite idea. There is more than work enough 
in this nation for all. The books of this institution opened but a few days 
since show this. We have entered the largest single class ever known in 
the United States, and that too after rejecting over fifty candidates as ill- 
prepared ; and yet the other colleges and universities of this and neighbor- 
ing States, almost without exception, have increased their number of stu- 
dents. 

Yet another of these foundation ideas was that of a living union between 
this Uniz'i'rsitv and the %vhole school system of the State. 

It cannot fail to strike any thinking man with surprise that while the 
numbers in the public schools of this commonwealth are so great, the num- 
bers at the colleges are so small. What is the cause of this ? Is it that 
the people of this State do not wish any advanced education ? Every other 
sign shows that they do wish it. Is it that they have not the means ? The 
means were never more abundant than now. It is believed by many of us 
that it is because there is a want of vital connection between the higher in- 
stitutions and this great system of popular instruction. We believe that 
the only hope for such an institvition as we long to see is in pushing its 
roots deep down into this great rich school system. 

This idea also took shape in our Charter. Under the direction of the Su- 
perintendent of Public Instruction the statute was so framed as to provide 
for competitive examinations in each Assembly District, and to give the 
scholar passing the best examination, in studies pursued in the best common 
schools, admission free of all charge for tuition. 

Yet another of those fundamental ideas was that which, against prejudices 
of locality and of sect, has triumphed during these latter years in every great 
public body of this State, whether Legislature or Convention — the idea of 
concenti-ation of revenues for advanced education. 

In these days it takes large sums indeed to man and equip institutions 
prepared to do work of the highest and best. There must be large and va- 
ried lil)raries, delicate apparatus, models the most intricate, collections, 
cabinets, laboratories, observatories, shops, engines, instruments, tools. 



lo 1.he Inauguration. 

There must be buildings and farms, and there must be men, — men worth 
having. All this demands great means. 

Formerly the policy of the State had been to fritter away such resources. 
Great funds had been scattered among a large number of institutions. Each 
of these had nolile professors — all had done good work — but as a rule not 
one had the means to carry on the best work. 

Smaller States east and west of us had by concentration produced far 
greater results. Every year saw a long line of our most earnest young men 
going forth to the universities of other States which had pursued a policy 
of concentration. 

It has indeed been claimed that by scattering small colleges over the 
State facilities for advanced education were increased. This may have been 
so before railroads practically reduced States to a tenth of their old limits. 
Certainly it is not so now. Concentration of means is proven to draw out 
a far greater number of students than the opposite policy. Again I turn 
from theory to fact ; again I cite our neighbor, the State of Michigan, with 
only about an eighth of our population and with the smallest fraction of our 
wealth, and she has more students to-day in her one University, under her 
policy of concentrating resources, than the State of New York has in all 
her colleges under her policy of scattering them. The class which entered 
that institution a fortnight since outnumbers all the entering classes of all 
our colleges. 

Facts like these show that you can only attract students by meeting their 
wants ; that it is not nearness and cheapness merely, but thoroughness 
and fullness which attract students. Divide the University of Michigan 
into four parts, and scatter them over the State, and, at the very highest, 
you would not draw more than a hundred students to each. Concentrate 
them, and to-day over fifteen hundred students enter its halls. 

Facts like these have had their weight. They have carried the day in 
legislatures and conventions against local interests, sectarian influence and 
the attachment of graduates to their alma mater, until concentration for ad- 
vanced education may be regarded as the settled policy of the State. 

Such are some of the main foundation ideas of our plan. I come now 
to another class : — 

FORMATIVE IDEAS. 

First of these I name the idea o^ equality behvcen different courses of study. 

It is determined to give special courses like those in agriculture, me- 
chanic arts, engineering and the like, equality in honor with other special 
courses. To this we are pledged. It has been the custom, almost univer- 
sally, to establish colleges for agriculture or the mechanic arts separate from 
all others, with small endowments. These have been generally placed in 
remote and unattractive parts of States, and, as a rule, thus treated, they 
have been regarded as the inferior college of an inferior caste, and have lan- 
guished and died. 

From that practice this State has departed. A citizen having provided 
mainly the endowment for an University, it unites with it or rather incor- 
porates into it departments of agriculture and the mechanic arts, to be lead- 
ing departments, in full standing, at least equal to any other, equal in priv- 
ilege, equal in rank of students, perhaps more than equal in care. 

It does not send the student in agriculture or mechanic arts to some 
place remote from general instruction. It gives the farmer's son the same 



President White s Address. ii 

standing that it gives the son of any other citizen. It makes him a part of 
an University broad and hberal ; it makes his study the equal of any study ; 
it makes liim the peer of any student. 

In obedience to your wishes, gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, I have 
within the past two years visited a number of the leading schools of agri- 
culture and the mechanic arts, both in the old world and in the new. I 
have found the better opinion unanimously in favor of the system which the 
State has now adopted, that of giving to these great practical arts of life 
equal and honored departments in an University rather than to scatter them 
to schools feeble and remote. 

A similar principle is to govern us in the formation of courses of study in 
the departments of science, literature and the arts in general. It is an 
old custom, derived from the mother country, to force all students into one 
single, simple course of study. No matter what the tastes of the young 
student, no matter what his aims, through this one course he must go, and 
through none other. For generations this has been the leading pohcy in 
higher education. Noble men have been produced under this system, part- 
ly by it, partly in spite of it ; but its general results have been unfortunate 
in the extreme. Presenting to large classes of young men no studies to at- 
tract them or stimulate them, these have conceived a dislike for higher ed- 
ucation. Still worse, it has injured their mental quality hy dragging them 
through one branch after another for which they cared not, droning rather 
than studying, a half-way mental labor more injurious than no mental labor. 

The Cornell University attempts a different plan. It presents to stu- 
dents, coming to its halls, several courses, separate and distinct, suited to 
different minds, looking toward different pursuits. Acting up to the Uni- 
versity ideas of its Founder and its Charter from State and nation, does a 
student desire the old, time-honored course, enriched by classical study, it 
gives it ; does he wish more attention to modern science, to history, to the 
great languages and literatures of the modern world, to science as bearing on 
practice, it gives either of these. 

But it may be said that other colleges have done this. This is but par- 
tially true. A few have manfully attempted it, and they deserve all credit. 
As a general rule, these more recent courses have been held inferior, and 
the students taking them have been held inferior. Both courses and stu- 
dents have generally been studiously kept apart from those esteemed more 
ancient and honorable. Thus has risen a spirit of caste fatal to the full de- 
velopment of these newer courses. 

The Cornell University holds these courses, if of equal duration, equal. 
Four years of good study in one direction are held equal to four years of 
good study In another. No fictitious supremacy is ascribed to either. 

Another part of our plan is to combine labor and study. 

The attempt is to have this a voluntary matter. It is not believed that 
forced labor can be made profitable either to the institution or to the stu- 
dent. Voluntary labor corps will be formed and the work paid for at its 
real value — no more, no less. 

The question is constantly asked — can young men support themselves by 
labor and at the same time carry on their studies ? The answer as I con- 
ceive it is this. Any student, well prepared in his studies, vigorous in consti- 
tution and skilled in some available branch of industry, can, after a little time, 
do much toward his own support, and in some cases support himself entire- 
ly. At present the young carpenter or mason can earn enough on the Uni- 



12 T^he Inauguration. 

\-ersity buildings during half a day to carry him through the other half, and 
ii is hoped that, as our enterprise develojis, young men of energy and me- 
chanical ability can do much toward their own support in the shops to be 
constructed, and upon the University farm under direction of the professors 
in the College of Agriculture. In the latter especially there is hope for 
the most speedy solution of the proljlem, and it is believed that young men 
skillful and energetic in farm labor, may, by work during the vacations and 
in some of the hours spared from study during the remainder of the year, 
accomplish their own support. 

Still I would avow my belief that the part of this experiment likely to 
produce the most satisfactory results is that in which the labor itself is made 
to have an educational value. In the careful designing and construction of 
models and apparatus under competent professors, the artisan, who has al- 
ready learned the use of tools, can acquire skill in machine drawing, knowl- 
edge of adjustment of parts, dexterity in fitting them, beside supporting 
himself at least in part and supplying models to the University cabinets at 
a moderate rate. Master mechanics thus educated are among the greatest 
material necessities of this country. The amount annually wasted in the 
stumblings and blunderings of unscientific mechanicians and engineers 
would endow splendid universities in every State. One of the noblest aims 
of this institution is to thus take good substantial mechanics and farmers 
from the various shops and farms of the State and give them back fitted to 
improve old methods, invent new, and generally to be worthy leaders in 
the army of industry. 

With unskilled labor the problem is more difficult. Students, unskilled 
in labor, agricultural or mechanical, may do much toward their own sup- 
port, in cases where there is quickness in learning and great physical vigor. 
Still the number of such cases will be found, I think, comparatively small. 
The chances in this direction for young men city-bred, delicately reared, or 
of a constitution not robust, are, I think, few. 

I know well, gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, that you will do all that 
can be done to solve this problem ; and, gentlemen of the Faculty, I know 
that you will earnestly second this effort. No class of students shall be re- 
garded by us all with more favor than those who work with their hands 
that they may work with their brains. 

Closely connected with this comes physical education. From the first 
this has held an important place in our plan, and I think that every person 
interested in our enterprise will be glad to know that the Faculty have al- 
ready in this respect seconded the intentions of the Trustees. The idea of 
Herbert Spencer regarding man's study of himself as preliminary to other 
study has been carried out in our university programme. In the schedule 
of studies already arranged, every student, in every fixed course, must pur- 
sue the study of human anatomy, physiology and hygiene, and it is hoped 
that by adding to this work and gymnastic exercises we may do something 
toward preventing our scholars becoming a "feeble folk," and may bring up 
physical development not less than mental. I fully believe that to-day in 
the United States physical education and development is a more pressing 
necessity even than mental development, and we shall act upon that belief. 

Still another idea which has shaped our plans for instruction is that of 
)naki)ig much of scientific study. 

The wonderful progress in natural science has aroused an interest which 
we shall endeavor to satisfy ; but, more than this, M-e would endeavor to 



President's White s Address. 13 

inculcate scientific methods for their own sake. We would lead the stu- 
dent not less into inductive processes than into deductive. To carry out 
this idea the F'aculty have arranged to commence the study of natural ■ 
science at the beginning of the course, and not, as has usually been the case, 
to throw it into the latter part, when the student has his eye fixed on active 
life. We shall try this experiment. It is urged by some of the loest think- 
ers of modern times. We hope for it not only something in the interest of 
science, but we believe that it will make the student stronger for studies in 
language and literature. But while we would give precision and strength to 
the mind in these ways we would give ample opportunity for those classes of 
studies which give breadth to the mind, and which directly fit the student 
for dealing with state problems and world problems. In this view histor- 
ical studies, and studies in social and political science will hold an honored 
place. But these studies will not be pursued in the interest of any party. 
On points, where honest and earnest men differ, I trust we may have courses 
of lectures presenting both sides. I would have both the great schools in 
political economy represented here by their ablest lecturers. 

You have seen, fellow citizens, that nearly all these formative ideas may 
be included in one, and that is the adaptation of this University to the 
•American people, to American needs, and to our own times. Not to Eng- 
lish life and English needs, not to French or German life and needs; not 
to the times of Erasmus, or Bacon, or the Mathers, or Dr. Dwight, but to 
this land and this time. Happy was I a week since to be strengthened in 
these ideas by a voice from across the waters, which every American honors 
and which will be heard ringing nobly here as it has done in academic halls 
of the old world — the voice of Goldwin Smith. 

I will read from a recent letter. After expressing a most earnest sympa- 
thy and promising speedy co-operation in our work here, Professor Smith thus 
writes — "You say you wish I could be with you. So do I, because the occa- 
"sion will be one of the deepest interest. But you would not persuade me to 
"give you any advice. I know too well the difference between the old and 
" the new world. At least the only advice I should give you would be — with- 
"out ignoring the educational experience of Europe to act quite independ- 
" ently of it, and to remain uninfluenced either in the way of imitation or of 
"antagonism, by our educational institutions or ideas. The question of aca- 
"demical education on this side of the water is mixed up with historical ac- 
"cidents and with political struggles to which on your side there are happily 
"no counterparts. » * * What I would say is — adapt your practical ed- 
"ucation, which must be the basis of the whole, to the practical needs of 
"American life, and for the general culture take those subjects which are 
"most important and interesting to the citizen and the man. Whatever part 
"may be assigned to my subject in the course of general culture, I will do 
"what I can to meet the wishes of the authorities of the University, with- 
"out exaggerating the value of the subject or unduly extending its sphere." 

The Faculty have been found true to this spirit. They have already 
voted to memorialize the Trustees that, at an early day, provision be made 
for some of those studies which the ordinary needs of the country call for — 
those studies which have so much value in a commercial country. For ex- 
ample, I hope to see the time and that speedily when every student in this 
institution shall have the opportunity to obtain the elements of mercantile 
law and the practice of accounts ; the latter, especially, not only for its 
practical utility, but as conducive to systematic habits of noting,' comparing 



14 T'he Inauguration. 

and preserving results, not less valuable to the man of science than the man 
of business. 

Such are some of the main formative ideas. Let me now call your at- 
tention to some of another class. 

GOVERNMENTAL IDEAS. 

First of these is the the regular and frequent infusions ofneiu life into the 
gove7-ning board. The Trustees themselves proposed this ; the State Leg- 
islature embedded it in our Charter. The provision is two-fold. First, it 
makes the term of office of the Trustees five years, instead of the usual life 
tenure, and requires that all elections be by ballot. Next it requires that 
so soon as our graduates number fifty they may elect one Trustee each year, 
thus giving them one third of the whole number elected. Thus it is hoped 
to prevent stagnation, to make a more living connection between the insti- 
tution and its graduates, and to constantly pour into its councils new and 
earnest life. 

Another of this class of ideas refers to the government of students by 
themselves. 

The government of large bodies of young men assembled in colleges and 
universities presents some of the knottiest problems in education. It will 
be the aim of the authorities to promote more and more the residence of 
students in private families, and thus to bring the young men under family 
influence, and under the feeling that they are members of the community, 
subject to the same laws and customs which bind other members. 

But our plans require that a large number reside in the University build- 
ings. That students thus congregated are difficult to govern all know. 
How shall they be controlled ? The usual method has been to place among 
them the members of the faculty of instruction, to make these a police, de- 
tective and repressive. Order under this system has generally been bad ; 
the relations between student and instructor have been worse. In several 
cases so bad a spirit has arisen that members of a faculty have been as- 
saulted with intent to kill. As to the relations thus formed, it is evident 
that a pedagogue policeman must be the least fascinating of instructors and 
the least vigorous of rulers. 

It has therefore been determined to bring to bear here to some extent the 
combined principles of self-government and strict accountability. Stu- 
dents will be admitted to reside in the building only on condition that 
they subject themselves to a simple military organization, sufficient to en- 
force the University by-laws and to secure order and sanitary supervision. 
This organization will be conducted by officers selected from their own num- 
bers, and will be under the superintendence of the Professor of Military 
Science, who is made for tliis purpose Commandant of the University Buil- 
dings. 

We hope good results from this. It has succeeded well at military col- 
leges, and the principle at its center formed the nucleus of Dr. Arnold's 
monitorial system at Rugby. The success of that experiment is a matter of 
history. 

But while we thus act in the spirit of our Congressional Charter we hope 
to take from the military organization all its harshness. 

We have faith in manly, open, social intercourse between faculty and 
students. A large social hall has been provided. In this it is intended to 
bring students and faculty together from lime to time, to have them talk to 



President Whitens Address. 15 

each other, to have them know each other, and thus to transmute the tradi- 
tional and most unfortunate relations M'hich too often exist between in- 
structors and instructed, into a relation not of a college boy to a pedagogue, 
but into a relation simply of man to man. But there must be no namby- 
pambyism, no playing with young men who would disgrace us, no sacrifice 
of the earnest many to the unearnest few. 

We wish it distinctly understood that this is no "Reform School." It is 
established to give advanced education to earnest, hard-working young men, 
not to give a respectable resting place to unearnest and idle young men. The 
function of its faculty is educating sound scholars, not reclaiming vicious 
boys. We have no right to give our strength or effort to reform, or drag, 
or push any man into an education ; we have no time for that. One lag- 
gard will take more life out of a professor than a dozen vigorous scholars — 
one debauchee will take more time from a faculty than a score of trusty 
scholars. P'or minor short-comings and faults there will be some forbear- 
ance ; for confirmed idleness and vice there will be none. 

But I should not be frank here were I to be silent regarding a question 
in which great numbers of earnest citizens take a deep interest, and which 
has been lately pressed upon us by a most cogent and careful memorial 
from the public school teachers of the State of New York — the question of 
admitting students regardless of race or sex. 

I believe myself justified in stating that the authorities of the Universi- 
ty would hold that under the organic law of the institution we have no right 
to reject any man on account of race. 

As to the question of sex, I have little doubt that within a very few years 
the experiment desired will be tried in some of our largest universities. 
There are many reasons for expecting its success. It has succeeded not 
only in the common schools, but what is much more to the point in the 
normal schools, high schools, and academies of this State. It has suc- 
ceeded so far in some of the leading lecture rooms of our leading colleges 
that it is very difficult to see why it should not succeed in all their lecture 
rooms, and, if the experiment succeeds as regards lectures, it is very diffi- 
cult to see why it should not succeed as regards recitations. Speaking en- 
tirely for myself I would say that I am perfectly willing to undertake the 
experiment as soon as it shall be possible to do so. But no fair-minded 
man or woman can ask us to undertake it now. It is with the utmost diffi- 
culty that we are ready to receive young men. It has cost years of hard 
thought and labor to get ready to carry out the first intentions of the nation- 
al and state authorities which had reference to young men. I trust the 
time may soon come when we can do more. 

And finally, there are certain general ideas which must enter into our 
work in all its parts. 

PERMEATING OR CROWNING IDEAS. 

They are two. First, the need of labor and sacrifice in developing the in- 
dividual man, in all his nature, in all his paivers, as a being intellectual, 
tnoral and religions. 

In carrying out the first of these no good means are to be rejected. Train- 
ing in history and literature comes in with training in science and the arts. 
There need be no cant against classical studies or for them. Their great 
worth for many minds cannot be denied. The most perfect languages the 
world has ever known will always have students. The simple principle will 
be that of university liberty of choice among studies. Those who feel that 



i6 T^he Inauguration. 

they can build themselves up by classical studies will be encouraged. We 
shall not injure such studies by tying those who love them to those who 
loathe them. And let me urge here that we work toward some great 
sciences and arts which have been sadly neglected, which nevertheless are 
among the most powerful in developing the whole man. 

It seems to me a great perversion that while so much pains is taken in 
the great universities of the world to study the s -.ond rate things of litera- 
ture — conventional poetry and superseded philosophy — there should be 
no interpretation of the great conceptions of such men as Fra Angelico, and 
Michael Angelo, and Raphael, and Millais ; it seems wonderful that there 
should be so much time given to rhetoric-makers and so little to the drama 
of Shakspeare or to the sonnets of Milton ; it seems monstrous that there 
should be so much effort to drill immortals in petty prosody and so little 
effort to l)ring them within reach of those colossal symphonies of Beethoven 
and Handel. The men of the "dark ages" who placed the most powerful of 
the arts second in the Quadrivium, were certainly more in the light here 
than we. 

The second of these permeating ideas is that of bringing the powers of 
the man, thus developed, to hear upon society. 

In a republic like this the way in which this is most generally done is by 
the speech. Its abuses are manifest. Palaver has brought many troubles. 
Gab has brought some curses. Educated men have often shrunk from 
these. Nothing could be more unfortunate. The educated men of a re- 
public should keep control of the forum. Universities suited to this land 
and time should fit them to do it. vSome of the steps in this preparation 
may seem almost absurd but they should be taken. Almost every educated 
man can make himself an effective speaker — I do not say orator, but effec- 
tive speaker, and every educated man should do it. In no place better than 
in the university can a man learn to think while on his feet ; that done the 
rest is easy. I would not have too much stress laid on mere oratory, but 
the power of summoning thought quickly and using it forcibly I would have 
cultivated with especial care. 

A second mode of bringing thought to bear upon society is by the press. 
Its power is well known ; still its legitimate power among us might be made 
greater, and its illegitimate power less. I think that more and more the 
universities should have the wants of the great "fourth estate" in view. 
We should, to meet their wants, provide ample instruction in history, in po- 
litical science, in social science, in the modern literatures. With all the 
strength of our newspaper press its best men declare the great majority of 
their recruits lamentably deficient in this knowledge and that power 
essential to their work. Here too a duty devolves upon the institutions of 
learning. Chosen men should be given power to work with this mighty 
engine. Their minds should be trained and stocked to that end. 

But any sketch of the ideas which this institution has aimed to embody 
would be imperfect without a brief supplement showing those we have en- 
deavored to throw out. Call them 

ELIMINATED IDEAS. 

These may be cast mainly into two groups — first, the ideas of the ped- 
ants ; secondly, the ideas of the Philistines. 

Of the first are they who gnaw forever at the dry husks and bitter rinds 
of learning and never get at the real, precious kernel. These are they who 
in so many primary schools teach boys to spell mechanically aloud, — a thing 



President White's Address. 17 

which they are hardly called upon to do twice in a lifetime, and to be ut- 
terly unal)!e to spell correctly on paper — a thing which they are called upon 
to do every day of their lives. 

These are they who in so many public schools teach boys geography by 
stupid parrotings upon leaden text-books, and leave them to come before 
the examiners of this l^niversity to be rejected, as more than fifty have 
been rejected during the last three days for statements that London is in 
the west of England, Havre in the south of France, Portugal the capital of 
Spain, Borneo the capital of Prussia, India a part of Africa, Egypt a prov- 
ince of Russia, and the like. 

These are they who in so many high schools teach young men by text- 
book to parse, and by their teachers' example to speak ungrammatically. 

These are they who in so many colleges teach your young men endless 
metaphysics of the Latin subjunctive, and gerund-grindings, and second- 
hand dilutions of doubtful philology, with not an idea of the massiveness of 
statesmanship in Cicero, or the vigor of patriotism in Tacitus. 

These are they who afflict young men with wearisome synopsizing of the 
Greek verb, with accents and quantities, until there is no time for the great 
thoughts of Plato or Thucydides. 

Out upon the whole race of these owls ! Let us have done with them ! 

Then the Philistines — men who in the world at large see no need of any 
education beyond that which enables a man to live by his wits and to prey 
upon his neighbors — men who care nothing for bringing young men within 
range of the great thoughts of great thinkers — men to whom "Greed is God 
and Gunnybags his prophet." 

Of the Philistines, too, are they who, in institutions of learning, see only 
the hard things, the dry things, and never the beautiful things ; who sub- 
stitute dates for history, and criticisms for literature, and formulas for sci- 
ence, who give all attention to the stalk of learning and none to the bloom. 

May this not be so among us. We may not be able to do all we could 
wish to realize our ideal, but let us work towards it. Mingle these influ- 
ences with the education of our agriculturists ; bring them to bear upon the 
rural homes of this land, and you shall see a happy change. You shall no 
longer be pained at that desertion of country for city which far-seeing men 
now so earnestly deplore. 

Gentlemen of the Faculty: — After this imperfect suggestion of the ideas 
underlying, forming, permeating our work, I appeal to you. The task be- 
fore us is difficult. It demands hard thought, hard work. You will be 
called upon to exercise skill, energy and forbearance. The faculty of this 
institution is the last place in the world for a man of mere dignity or of ele- 
gant ease. 

But if the toil be great the reward also is great. It is the reward which 
the successful professor so prizes — the sight of men made strong for the 
true, the beautiful and the good through your help. The petty vanity of offi- 
cial station too often corrodes what is best in man ; the pride of wealth is 
poverty indeed for heart, or soul, or mind ; but the honest pride of the uni- 
versity instructor, seeing his treasures in noble scholars within the Univer- 
sity and noble men outside its wall, is something far more worthy. 

Said St. Felippo Neri as he, day after day, came to the door of the College 
at Rome at the time when the English scholars passed out, young men who 
were to be persecuted and put to death under the cruel laws of Elizabeth of 
England, " I am come to feast my eyes on those martyrs yonder." 



1 8 'The Inauguration. 

So may each of us feast our eyes on scholars, writers, revealers of nature, 
leaders in art, statesmen, who shall go in and out of yonder halls. 

Let us labor in this spirit. The work of every one of us, even of those 
who deal with material forces, is a moral work. Henry Thijmas Buckle was 
doubtless wrong in the small weight he ascribed to moral forces, but he was 
doubtless right in his high estimate of the moral value of material forces. 
He found but half the truth ; let us recognize the whole truth ; let it be full 
orbed. Every professor, who works to increase material welfare, acts to 
increase moral welfare. 

I ask your aid as advisers, as friends. Let us hold ourselves in firm 
phalanx for truth and against error. 

To you also, who appear in the first classes of students of the Cornell Uni- 
versity: — You have had the faith and courage to cast in your lot with a new 
institution ; you have preferred its roughness to the smoothness of more 
venerable organizations ; you have not feared to aid in an experiment, know- 
ing that there must be some groping and some stumbling. I will not ask 
you to be true to us. I will ask you to be true to yourselves. In Heaven's 
name be men. Is it not time that some poor student traditions be sup- 
planted by better ? You are not here to be made ; you are here to make 
yourselves. You are not here to hang upon an University ; you are here to 
help build an University. This is no place for children's tricks and toys, 
for exploits which only excite the wonderment of boarding school misses. 
You are here to begin a man's work in the greatest time and land the world 
has yet known. I bid you take hold, take hold with the national Congress, 
with the State authorities, with Ezra Cornell, with theTrustees, with the 
Faculty, to build here by manly conduct and by study an University which 
shall be your pride. You are part of it. From your midst are to come its 
Trustees, Professors. Look to it that you be ready for your responsibilities. 

Gentlemen of the Trustees : — In accepting to-day formally the trust 
which for two years I have discharged really, I desire to thank you for your 
steady co-operation and support in the past and ask its continuance. 

You well know the trust was not sought by me. You well know with 
what misgivings it was accepted. In the utmost sincerity I say that it will 
be the greatest happiness of my life to be able, at some day not remote, to 
honorably resign it into hands worthier and stronger than my own. 

Not a shadow of discord has ever disturbed our relations. Permit me to 
ask for my brothers in the Faculty the same cordiality ■\\hich you have ex- 
tended to me. 

You have been pleased to express satisfaction with my administration 
thus far; I trust that with this aid the work may be better. 

And, in conclusion, to you, our honored Founder: — I may not intrude 
here my own private gratitude for kindnesses innumerable. Sturdily and 
Steadily you have pressed on this enterprise, often against discouragement, 
sometimes against obloquy. But the people of this great commonwealth 
have stood by you. Evidences of it are seen in a thousand forms, but at 
this moment most of all in the number of their sons who have couie to en- 
joy your bounty. 

You were once publicly charged with a high crime. It was declared that 
you "sought to erect a great monument" for yourself. 

Sir, would to Heaven that more of our citizens might seek to rear monu- 
ments such as this of yours. They are indeed lasting. The names chis- 
eled in granite in the days of Elihu Yale and John Harvard have l.ee.i ef- 



Professor RusseV s Address. 19 

faced, but Yale and Harvard bear aloft forever the names of their founders. 
The ordinary great men of days gone by, the holders of high office, the 
leaders of rank — who remembers their names now^ ? Who does not re- 
member the names of founders or benefactors of our universities ? Har- 
vard and Yale, Dartmouth and Bowdoin, Brown and Amherst, all answer 
this question. 

The names of Packer, Vassar, Cooper, Wells, Cornell, they are solidly 
rooted in what shall stand longest in this nation. They shall see a vast 
expanse of mushroom names go down, but theirs shall remain forever. 
Their benefactions lift them into the view of all men. 

But, Sir, I would bear testimony here that your name was never thrust 
forward by yourself. You care little, indeed, what any man thinks ofyou or 
of your actions, but I feel it a duty to state that you were preparing to deal 
munificently with the institution under a different name when another in- 
sisted that your own name should be given it. 

It has happened to me to see your persistence, your energy and your 
sincerity tested. We have been too much together for me to flatter you 
now, but I will say to your fellow citizens that no man ever showed greater 
energy in piling up a fortune for himself than you have shown to heap up 
this benefaction for your countrymen. You have given yourself to it. 

Therefore, in the name of this commonwealth and this nation, I thank 
you. I know that I am as really empowered to do so in their behalf as if I 
held their most formal credentials. I thank you for those present, for 
those to come. May you be long spared to us. May this be a monument 
which shall make earnest men more earnest and despondent men take heart. 
May there ever rest upon it the approval of good men. Above all, may it 
have the blessing of God. 

The President's address was followed by the inauguration of the Profes- 
sors and an address representing them by Professor William Channing 
Russel. 

ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR RUSSEL. 

MR. President : — The resident Professors have asked me to reply 
to your address, and to express in a few words their sense of the 
privileges and responsibiUties of the places they undertake and 
their sympathy in the views you have uttered. 

We do, indeed, feel it to be a privilege to be associated in such an under- 
taking as this with a man whose deeds in the cause of education will make 
the name of Cornell historical, and to be co-laborers with him in a plan by 
which a great State has economized for the elevation of her children the 
bounty of a watchful country. Yes, we follow the lead of that far-sighted 
man, of that wise State and that dear country, and enter gladly upon the 
work of carrying out their aims in laying in the education of the people the 
foundations of private happiness and political progress. 

We do value at a high price the means of good influence which our posi- 
tions afford, nor have we taken up this serious responsibility without a 
deep joy in the chance of impressing the youth of to-day with tendencies 
useful to to-morrow's work. In this sense of our opportunities we trust 
that with God's help we shall be faithful to the means placed at our dispo- 
sal and justify the hopes of our Founder and of the State, so that to our ex- 
tremest borders a good influence may radiate from University hill, stimu- 
lating the cause of education and drawing all to us. I am unable to say 



20 The Inauguration. 

how large a proportion of onr professors I represent in hoping that the 
arranfrenienls of the University when completed will open our doors to all 
M-ho wish to be taught, not to the future fathers only, but to the future 
wives and mothers of our State; but I know that I express the views of 
every one of us in saying that the greatest possible good to the people of 
our land will be the only measure of his judgment, the only limit of his 
efforts. 

In aiming at that good we shall always be glad to keep in mind the lead- 
ing principle of the institution, useful education for all. The farmer mny 
come here and learn the laws which regulate the returns of his labor, the 
miner, the engineer, the mechanician may become familiar with the prin- 
ciples which lay at the foundation of their arts, -and the student of litera- 
ture may here be introduced to the intellectual riches of every nation. The 
Trustees have provided different courses for those who need different train- 
ing, and the studies in each follow in scientific order. 

In examining these courses it appears that the great difference between 
them and those of other institutions consists in the subordination in ours of 
the classical hterary studies to the practical and scientific; and it may not 
be out of place to give the views of the body of the professors on a point 
over the successful carrying out of which their personal feelings must have 
so much influence. 

You have. Sir, happily described the great change which is coming over 
men's minds as to the purposes and means of education. Although we, like 
yourself, have been educated upon the old system, and have enjoyed the 
mental training of the classic languages, yet we agree with you in thinking 
that the time has fully come when that change should be radical, and that 
Latin and Greek should cease to hold, in systems of education, a place so 
important as that of scientific studies. We cannot see the bearing of 
science, if only in increasing the outward happiness of mankind, in stimu- 
lating the production of material wealth, multiplying the blessings of earth 
and making the race physically better, without feehng that its appeals are 
imperious and unanswerable. Nor can we look through the half-open doors 
of the infinite laboratory of nature and at the vast untried material for in- 
vestigation, of which the discoveries of the past offer only suggestions and 
stepping-stones, without wishing that every young mind may be warmed 
with zeal to penetrate and examine and make his own the laws of the great 
creative activity. In the presence of this great light it seems to us a ter- 
rible thing to subordinate it in importance to mental drill and to neglect it 
for the long study of the languages and literature of two nations who per- 
ished fifteen hundred years ago. 

We agree with those who think that the correct order in curiosity is first 
the nature and history of the world about us, a knowledge of mathematics 
being imnrediately necessary to pursue the investigation of its facts and 
laws ; that the history of our race, in which literature and language would 
find their honorable places, would next demand attention ; that at the last, 
the knowledge of the nature, and capacities, and responsibilities of the indi- 
vidual being would crown the knowledge of nature, and history, and litera- 
ture ; and we believe that this order of studies would promote a healthy 
growth of the mental faculties, and maintain from the beginning to the end 
an intelligent gratitude to the Author of nature, the Guide of our race, the 
Support of being, and would lay in the truths of infinite goodness the foun- 
dations of love and duty. 



Professor RusseV s Address. i\ 

Two reasons, however, exist for not adhering in education to this order. 
Languages are much more readily gained at the beginning of life. If put 
back until after the sciences have been followed to even a very small extent 
they can be learnel only at a long outlay of hard work, and that, too, at a 
time of life when every hour is needed for many things. Again, the drill 
upon Latin and Greek is of the greatest good in bringing out the power of 
judgment and in making habits of calmness, patience and accuracy, invalu- 
able qualities in the search of scientific knowledge as well as in other men- 
tal work and in the growth of character. These reasons justify our taking 
classical studies out of what would otherwise be their natural order of acq ui- 
:sition and in placing them at the beginning of a course of education. If in 
this place they fill only their proper share of room and do not crowd out 
scientific studies only good willresult. But hitherto they have been allowed 
too large a share, and have been the main means of drill and sources of 
knowledge, and from this mistake have resulted the greatest losses to in- 
dividuals and to society. 

This exclusively classical way drilled the intellectnal faculties 
and made tkern shirp, strong and ready. The pupil knew two classic 
languages and their literature and had gained the power of applying his 
teain systematically, persistently and judiciously. But what furniture had 
he for his mind, what single element of his learning could enter into his 
character? He was a valuable machine plus the enjoyment of Latin and 
Greek writers. He looked on the fixed stars with dim eyes, the rocks jiro- 
claimed the history of the globe to him in vain, the beautiful colors of the 
flowers were all he saw of their marvelous growth, and the elements and 
ttheir manifold comMnations and changes were by him all unsuspected. 
None of the principles common to all the departments of nature, nor the 
grandeur of her simplicity expanded his young mind or warmed his imagi- 
nation. 

Believing, then, that the expansion of the sphere of knowledge, the 
warming of the sympathy, the quickening of the imagination, and the kind- 
ling a desire of growth and spiritual life are as essential, nay more so, than 
even the cultivation of force of brain, we cannot consent to the subordina- 
tion of scientific culture to the study of the classics to the extent or at the risk 
of shutting out the former. We believe that the combination of both is the 
richest culture. We have no doubt that a drill on the ancient languages i s 
the best preparation for scientific study, and we should be glad to have all 
Acientiftc students so drilled, for merely in view of science and without con- 
sidering the pleasures of classic literature they would be large gainers. In- 
deed to those who have time for both we would urge its study in the stron- 
gest terms. They may find in it endless wealth of mind, the most beauti- 
ful models of language, and works of art which have never been equalled. 
The classics improve the taste, give precision and solidity of action to the 
intellect, enrich the memory with beautiful things, and open the doors to 
the literature of the world of to-day. We owe to them too much to hold 
back any from their study who can enter upon it without neglecting more 
important things. If the student has time for both, let him study both, 
but if his time be limited so that the acquisition of Latin and Greek would 
deprive him of the l^nowledge of the natural sciences, we have no hesitation 
in recommending him to give up the former. 

We would deplore a too practical tendency in the Institution, but would 
cultivate every department of knowledge, and in each, however i^aried, we 



22 The Inauguration. 

would liope that the field might be broad, and that the standard might be 
kept at a high point. Not that we should expect to make mere college stu- 
dents proficients in the details of every branch. If they can be taught clear- 
"ly and impressively the leading principles of science, the great features of 
history, the wealth of literature, and correct habits of philosophical reason- 
ing, we shall be satisfied with their preparatory education, but we desire 
very earnestly, as the peculiar distinction of this institution, that beyond this 
preparatory education, any pupil may find here all that can be learned in 
America in any branch to which he may devote himself. 

It is impossible to overrate our obligations to the institutions of learning 
in our country, which have done, and which are doing to-day, so 
much for civilization. We honor them as the springs and the streams of 
the learning which redeems us from barbarism. But we feel that this other 
department of instruction has not been distinctively occupied in this country, 
and we would enter modestly, but with the confidence of being able to hold 
it, this peculiar field of university education. We wish that this shall be in 
spirit, in aim, and in deed the Cornell University, having within itself a col- 
lege, as many colleges have preparatory schools, but reaching far beyond 
the college curriculum and giving special instruction in the highest branches 
of learning, where any man may learn in his special department all that can 
be taught on that subject, where he shall be brought up to the then highest 
point in that branch, and be prepared himself to investigate and discover, 
with no occasion for going elsewhere except for local information. We are 
aware that this hope cannot be realized at once, but we feel that by adapt- 
ing the structure and organization of the University to that indwelling and 
controlling idea, a greater depth and breadth and consistency will be given 
to its policy and its influence. We wish, in a word, to see all energies 
strained, not to carry on a college, but to become a University. 

Starting with this hope we untlertake our duties without shrinking from 
the hard work which you apprehend for us. We expect to have a great 
deal to do and to devote a great deal of time to it, but the pride of helping 
to make such a university as we trust this will be, will take off much of the 
wear and tear of our work. We begin, too, with some peculiar advantages. 
These are not, as we conceive, in the pecuniary resources of the Universi- 
ty, nor in its library, nor in its collections. Several of our honored instiiu- 
tions have accumulated more of each of these than that with which we be- 
gin. They have too what they deserve, the confidence of the community, 
and they can look back upon past success to encourage them in the future. 
But we have a great advantage, not only in not being hampered by embar- 
rassing precedents, but in the peculiar character of our students. We are 
certain of having a large proportion of them composed of the best material 
of the State, the best scholars in the public schools. These will owe their , 
admission to successful competition in scholarshi]^, the result of long and 
parsistent desire to come here and learn. After four years we shall proba- 
bly have five hundred students of this honorable character giving a tone of 
earnestness and persistence to the whole and leavening a mass whom it 
ni.iy be the pride of any men to guide onward. 

We shall have great support from our relations to the students. We 
mean that they shall be only pleasant and profitable. W'e shall undertake 
no police duty nor constitute ourselves watchmen to preserve order. The 
students themselves will regulate that, leaving to the professor the re- 
lations of friend, and guide, and instructor. We shall consider them as gen- 



Chancellor Pruyns Address. 12 

tlemen, and treat them as such -without any fear that our confidence will be 
misplaced, nor that our respect will fail to produce respect. 

But \\hatever may be our work, or however we may be disappointed in 
our p'ans, we feel each and all that we shall always have in you. Sir, a most 
substantial suppert and fellow worker, a devoted friend of our comn on ob- 
ject, a wise, energetic, self-sacrificing leader and a sympathizing friend. 
You, too, will expect from us entire truth and unselfishness, not always 
agreement with you in your ideas, nor conviction from your influence. But 
you will hope to find, and will find in us all, the most unreserved interest 
in the University, and the strongest efforts to make your administration of 
it the beginning of its long success. 

Professor Russel's address was succeeded by that of the Honorable John 
V. L. Pruyn, Chancellor of the University of the State of New York. 
ADDRESS OF CHANCELLOR PRUYN. 

MR. President, Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees of the 
Cornell University, Ladies and Gentlemen : — I was honored 
a few days ago by a request to say something, on this occasion, to 
the friends of the Cornell University, in reference to the great work in 
which they have engaged. The letter containing that invitation did not 
reach me until just before I left home, which must be my apology for 
addressing you in a very informal manner, and withoiit that arrangement 
of thoughts and subjects which I might otherwise have attempted. 

The objects and purposes of the Cornell University, the plans which 
have been adopted and are to be pursued, and the great ends to be attained 
in its establishment have been so fully placed before us in the address with 
which you, Mr. President, have gratified us, that I feel that little is left to 
be said by me. I am aware that it has been supposed that the relations of 
the Board of Regents to the other institutions of learning in the State are 
such that they have looked upon the Cornell University with feelings of 
coldness, or at best with indifference. While I speak for myself in explicit 
terms, I think I can safely say for my associates in the Board, that such 
views are quite unfounded, and that, as far as their official authority extends, 
they will cordially welcome the Cornell University into the large circle of 
institutions subject to their visitation. 

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, to you the friends 
of education in this State, especially the young men of the State, are under 
large obligations for the liberal course of study you have marked out to be 
pursued in your institution, and for the large accommodations and facilities 
for study which it provides ; and I beg you to rest assured that the Board 
"of Regents will witness with the highest satisfaction the success of your no- 
ble efforts to advance the cause of education. I was glad to hear to-day, in 
the remarks of the President of the Faculty, that this institution, while it 
was not to be sectarian in its teachings or its influences, was yet to be 
founded and carried on in the broad and comprehensive principles of Chris- 
tianity — that the offering of prayer and praise to the RIost High was to 
ascend day by day from its walls. I do not mean by this to say a word in 
derogation of what are ordinarily but generally very incorrectly called sec- 
tarian institutions. My official relations with those institutions has been 
such as to lead me to know that they have been doing a good work and do- 
ing it in most cases with great devotion and earnestness. They have been 



24 '^he Inauguration. 

carried on and sustained hy strong influences and by liljcral hearts, and de- 
serve our warmest regard, not only for the good tliey have done, but for 
that which they are sure to accomplish. I wish to alkide to another matter, 
which, in your address, Mr. President, you referred to, one which my ex- 
perience in visiting institutions of learning throughout the State has made 
fiimiliar to me. It is that the Faculty feel at all times the need of the hearty 
co-operation of the Board of Trustees. I regret to say that in many institu- 
tions of learning the want of this is sadly felt. I hope, therefore, that the 
words addressed to the Trustees by you will be remembered, and that they 
will by every means in their power seek to advance the interests of this in- 
stitution, and help to hold up your hands in the great work before you. 

The students with you to-day, to the number of several hundred, I learn, 
are here under circumstances of peculiar interest. You have truly said, Mr. 
President, that it is the largest Freshman class known to our academic 
history. Young gentlemen, you are here at the opening of an institution 
which promises to be one of great importance and large influences. Some 
of you, there is little doubt, will be here at its first semi-centennial, and will 
then look upon its history from its rising sunlight to what we may hope will 
be its glorious noon-day. One remark more and I have done. I doubted 
at first whether the place for your University was well chosen. But after 
visiting Ithaca and looking at the advantages and beauties of the place, I 
believe it to be one possessing many very desirable points for this purpose. 
Here you are at the head of this beautiful lake whose water passes into our 
great chain of lakes, and then by the St. Lawrence into the Atlantic, while 
not far from you the head. waters of the streams which run north and south 
almost meet. You are midway between the great lakes on the west and 
tide water on the east, and it may be said that so far as this State is con- 
cerned, you know no East, no West, no North, no South. I am glad also 
that this great work is to be carried on in this State, that in this Common- 
wealth, founded by a people whose ancestors earned renown by their love 
of liberty and learning, this is to grow up, as we all hope, to usefulness and 
greatness. 

It is related of the people of Leyden, that on being asked after the ter- 
mination of the terrible siege of their town, what boon they desired in ac- 
knowledgement of their valor, they said, give us a Univei-sity. Their re- 
quest was granted, and their city reaped a noble fame. These thoughts 
naturally occur to me when I remember that we are in a town founded by 
one who bore an honorable part in our struggle for independence, who was 
highly esteemed by the father of his country, and who, of Holland descent, 
liore one of the most illustrious names of that country; I hardly need say 
that I speak of .Simeon De\Vitt. 

Under circumstances thus liriefly alluded to, Mr. President, your institu- 
tion commences its work. May Heaven prosper it, and let its motto ever 
be that of our noble State, "Excelsior." 

Chancellor Pruyn's address closed the ceremonies of the forenoon. In 
the afternoon an immense crowd assembled in the vicinity of the Uni- 
versity buildings, to witness the proceedings connected with the presen- 
tation of a chime of nine bells to the Institution by Miss Jennie McGraw of 
Ithaca. The Honorable Erastus Brooks, of New York, was chosen to pre- 
side. 



Mr. Brooks s Address. 25 

ADDRESS OF MR. BROOKS. 

BY THE invitation of the Board of Trustees the privilege of presiding over 
your deliberations this afternoon is awarded to me. I congratulate you, 
fellow citizens, on this most auspicious occasion ; grateful we should be 
not only for the large numbers present, who thereby manifest their interest 
in the occasion which has brought us together, but grateful also for this au- 
tumnal weather in which we are permitted under so favorable auspices to 
find ourselves convened here this afternoon. I do not propose to entertain 
you by any lengthened remarks of my own. There are gentlemen who 
have their parts assigned to them, and who will address you in a becoming 
and in a pleasing manner. But I cannot omit to say, as a part of the cere- 
monies of this day, rather in continuation of vhat was said this morning, 
that I am glad to rejoice as a citizen of New York, as a citizen of the Uni- 
ted States, that we see around us the commencement of so great a public 
institution for the education of the rising generations among us. Its au- 
spices are most favorable. AVe purpose, in the words of one of those poets 
to which your elected President made allusion, "to open wide our gates, 
not with harsh and grating sound, but on golden hinges turning," so any 
who will, at least who may be deserving, may here enter and find instruction 
to suit themselves and the present condition of the country. To add many 
words to what was so well uttered this morning would be almost like paint- 
ing the lily, gilding refined gold, and adding perfume to the violet. There- 
fore, beyond expressing my profound thanks to the great Giver of all 
good, and the noble Founder of this institution, its President elect, and so 
many of its officers as are here at the present time, I shall have little or 
nothing to say. Nature has clothed and robed itself in all the beauties 
of this autumnal season, and those who have known so little of this section 
of the country in the past will be permitted to know much more of it in the 
future. In regard to the important occasion which has brought us together 
I will add but one word or two. The lady, who has honored us so much, 
and to whom the Board of Trustees have taken pride and pleasure in bear- 
ing testimony and appreciation of her kindly and timely gift, has presented 
something to us and to you, not like apparel perishable, but something 
which will endure as long as this institution shall endure. We feel grateful 
to her. We know — such is the appreciation of the gift, such our confidence 
in the institution to which we belong — that these will never be like "sweet 
bells jangled, out of tune and harsh," but always in harmony with the great 
interests of this institution. Bells are poetical, and they are maternal 
also. They summon the sluggard from his sleep, they call us to our morn- 
ing and to our evening prayers. They remind us of our daily duties in all 
the avocations of life, public and domestic, and we feel that in future 
years these will reveal a history to you and to us, not only honorable to the 
donor, but to those who are the recipients of her favor. I do not propose 
to detain you longer except to express the wish that the people of this 
.State — this great State, which has done so little, I might say, considering 
its wealth and prosperity, — have, through the bounty of the general govern- 
ment, by the wisdom of the legislature and by the noble bounty of Mr. 
Cornell, our Founder, established an institution here which will not be the 
only one in the United States, but will be, as I trust, a competitor with all 
the distinguished institutions of the civilized world. I now have the honor 
of introducing to you a gentleman, who, next to the Founder of this institu- 
tion and next to its President, has given more of his time and more of his 



a 6 'T'he Inauguration. 

patient labor to bring about tlie present occasion than any other gentleman 
connected with it. I now introduce to you Francis M. Finch, Secretary of 
the Cornell University. 

Mr. Francis M. Finch, of Ithaca, one of the Trustees of the University, 
now formally presented the chimes to the Institution in the name of Miss 
McGraw. The set of bells, the total weight of which is about six thousand 
pounds, had been previously mounted in a temporary campanile, where they 
were played both before and after the presentation address. 

ADDJ^ESS OF MR. FINCH. 

MR. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Board of Trijstees : — 
1 am commissioned by Miss McGraw to present to you this chime 
of bells for the use of the University ; and to ask your acceptance 
of the gift as a token of her interest in the enterprise which, to-day, so 
hopefully and bravely begins its work. 

She has watched its development, from the dawn of the grand purpose 
in the mind of its projector, through clouds that often obscured, and amid 
storms that sometimes assailed it, until now as it emerges into sunlight 
and begins its generous toil, she brings you a useful and beautiful gift, 
with as much of pleasure in the giving as you, I am assured, will feel in 
receiving it at her hands. 

The same energy and rapidity of execution which in a few brief years has 
given us a University, manned and equipped, and ready to begin its cen- 
turies of work, has enabled her to give you these bells to-day. In eigh- 
teen days they were molded, cast, brought to these hills, and placed in their 
temporary abode, waiting to add their music to the general joy, and weave 
into melody the hope and happiness of the hour. 

Of these bells there are nine. One of them is the worker of the flock. It 
will call your young men from their slumbers ; summon them to each of 
the duties of the day ; send them to the class room and lecture ; parcel out 
the hours, and guide and rule the days ; with a voice, commanding and un- 
compromising it may be, but with an undertone of melody which cannot 
fail to suggest the brave and vibrant pleasure that underlies all healthful 
work botli of teacher and of scholar. 

The rest — silent while the imperious worker clangs his call to work — will 
add their voices in the stillness and calm of the Sabbath mornings, in the 
serene peace of the Sabbath evenings, and waft over hill and valley and 
lake, stilling its waves to listen, the grand melodies of the Christian 
Church, and silence forever the false tale that, because all modes of Chris- 
tian worship are respected here, all Christian creeds permitted, with the 
same broad toleration which is the crown and glory of our free republic, 
therefore, there is no moral force, no religious culture here. Ringing 
their solemn chimes upon the Sabbaths of the year, their exultant notes 
upon the festivals of the nation, their clearest and purest tones will be re- 
served for that day of the University set apart to the faithful remembrance 
of the generous heart and toiling hand that have set this crown of learning 
upon the hills; and distant be the day when a tone of sadness shall 
moan among the melodies of these chimes because that generous heart is 
still and that toiling hand at rest. 

All things teach us lessons ; this golden day of October, the brown drift 
of the autumn leaves, the roar of the water among the rocks, the wrestle 



Mr. Fine /is Address. 27 



of the wind with yonder pines. These bells will teach us lessons if we but 
learn to interpret their tones. 

Young gentlemen of the University, what will the bells say to you ? They 
are the generous gift of a lady; therefore never forget to he gent/ciin-ii; not 
in the flippant society-sense of the term, which means gloves, perfumes, idle- 
ness, but, in that broad and grand old meaning, which blends honest and use- 
ful labor, spotless integrity, respect for age, kindness to the young and 
charity to all in the one word, gciit/fi?iait. If a thoughtless expression rises 
to the lips, if a hand is lifted in the haste of anger, if tempted to ungener- 
ous or uncourteous deeds, let the daily voice of these bells remintl you 
that she who gave them expects to sec you blend with your manly strength 
the kind heart, the generous hand, the patient forbearance, the thoughtful 
regard for the rights and feelings of others which make up, as can no mere 
rank, or wealth, or station, the true American gentleman. If labor grows 
weary, labor of muscle or of brain; if the classic pages seem dull, the fires 
in the laboratory burn dim, the figures on the slate dance tormentingly, the 
rattle of machinery grows painful, the very stars confused and taunting ; 
rouse yourselves, as the great bell swings in its tower, for she who gave it 
gave it to summon you to work; to steady and regulate the purpose of your 
lives, to signal not defeat but victory ; and looks to see you earnest, hopeful, 
determined workers to the end. 

Gentlemen of the Faculty, what will the bells say to you ? They are a 
woman's gift to the institution which is this day placed in your hands. 
Do not forget, as I am sure you will not, when they summon you to your 
daily duties, that she who gave them would have you rule the young men 
committed to your charge by kindness rather than force, by love more than 
law, by genial summer sympathy and not with frozen awe and reverence. 
Let the wall of Arctic ice, which too generally separates teacher and scholar, 
for once be thawed and melted, and whatever the frozen dignitaries, in 
their chairs of ice, breathing frost and looking polar icicles, may elsewhere 
say, believe me, the rule of kindly and genial intercourse, of unaffected 
sympathy, of personal interest and friendship, will prove the better and the 
wiser ride, and keep alive your memories in these young hearts when you 
have gone to the great Teacher whose rule is endless love. Students 
are not convicts ; keep prison discipline for those whose manhood is forfeit 
to the State. Students are not captives, they are guests ; let a genial hos- 
pitality usurp the place of bolts, and laws, and lurking spies. Students are 
not natural rebels ; if quick, spirited, impulsive, yet more easily guided by 
the silken rein, the steadying word, the friendly touch than by the bloody 
bit and whirr of the vindictive lash. You need not heed prophecies of fail- 
ure. They who urge you to this rule of love were students once and feel 
and know that you will never appeal in vain to the instinctive manliness of 
the student-heart. Let, then, that rule of kindness, which she who gives 
you this gift to-day most earnestly approves, at once prevail, and among 
the hundreds crowding to your doors, none worth your care, none fit to 
learn, none rightfully here, will bring your experiment to failure — not one ! 

Gentlemen of the lioard of Trustees, what will the bells say to you ? I 
repeat once more — they are a woman's gift. Do 'not think that 
while with unselfish purpose she seeks to aid and encourage this noble ef- 
fort to bring the highest and broadest culture within the reach of the young 
men of the land, that she at all forgets, that she ever can forget, the need 
and the longing of her sisters, all over the nation, for the same high cul- 



28 The Inauguration. 

ture, the same brond and liberal education. A generous forethought has 
opened the door to high intelligence and culture for the daughters of the 
wealthier classes, but the daughters of the poor will knock at your doors. 
l!id them be jiatient, if you will, till your new enterprise is consol- 
idated, till the time is propitious, and the way is clear. But let them see 
and know, meanwhile, that your hand is on the lock of the closed door, wait- 
ing only the safe moment to throw it wide that they may enter in ; and 
then, rescued from frivolous lives, emancipated from the infamous tyranny 
of fashion, apart from the giddy and painted butterflies that flash and die, 
feel the inspiration of lofty aims and noble purposes, vindicate not merely 
the swiftness but the strength of the woman-mind, and elevate and ennoble 
the sex, while the chimes their sister gave ring clearer and sweeter on the 
air as they celebrate the justice and mercy done at last. 

Citizens of Ithaca, you with whom I have lived from my cradle and prob- 
ably shall to my grave, what will these bells say to you ? Hitherto you have 
gone your way, quietly and soberly enough, in the store, in the workshop, 
in the office, in the fields; contented if each day added moderately to your 
gains, but with little to stimulate you to a life beyond that of your daily toil. 
But, to-day, there is a new sound upon your hills ; these bells will ring 
you on to higher lives, to nobler purposes. They will tell you that new ele- 
ments are here and new duties to be done. Never shut your ears to these 
college chimes because they remind you of the example this day set. Never 
let it be said that you have had neither part nor lot in this great enter- 
prise which some day will make your homes classic ground. If you could 
read, as I have done, in letters counted by the thousand, from the boy of 
the pine woods of Maine, to the poor lad of the Western plains, the almost 
piteous appeals, not for money, nor for bread, but for the means, by any 
toil or by any sacrifice, of educating themselves for better and nobler 
lives ; if you could know, as I have known, how great a blessing, 
how broad a kindness could be here bestowed, I think no man among you 
would stand with folded hands and silent lips. Aid and encourage, support 
and sustain, I pray you, this Institution so generously founded at your 
doors ; and, in the coming years, the sound of its morning and evening bells 
will fall upon you in the valley like thanks — like more than thanks — like a 
benediction. 

Mr. Piesident and gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, I have only 
now to fulfill the commission entrusted me, and which is one of the pleas- 
antest duties of my life, with the closing words of gift. 

TItcsc bells are nmu yottrs — given cheerfully, given gladly, given hope- 
fully ; given with the best wishes of a kind heart to all for whom their 
chimes shall ring ; given in full trust and confidence that you, and I, and all 
who have in any degree the care of this great work will fail in no duty and 
prove recreant to no trust. 

Let the memory of their giver make them sacred from injury or harm; 
let them ring always harmonies and never discords ; let them infuse into the 
College life, and interweave among its sober threads of practical study and 
toil some love of art and lines of grace and beauty ; let them teach the ex- 
cellence of order and .system, and, above all, let them gather the wandering 
thoughts, the restless hopes, the absorbing ambitions about that throne 
where reigns eternal kno\\ledgc, eternal peace. 

As I give you these bells, in behalf of her whose name I trust their mel- 
ody will always commemorate, it is fitting perhaps that no longer standing 



Superintendent Weaver s Address. 29 

between them and you, no more seeking feebly to interpret their voices, I 
should bid them ring their own lesson, chime their own welcome ; and this 
I can do, perhaps, in no worthier phrase than in the words inscribed upon 
them; words of a great English poet, destined to live forever; words of the 
older education carved among the melodies of the new ; words that with 
wide command tell us what the bells shall say forever : — 

FIRST BEI.L. 

Ring out the old — ring in the new ; 
Ring out the false — ring in the true ; 

SECOND BELL. 

Ring out the grief that saps the mind ; 
Ring in redress for all mankind. 

THIRD BELL. 

Ring out a slowly dying cause, 

And ancient forms of party strife : 

FOURTH BELL. 

Ring in the nobler modes of life, 
With sweeter }?ianners, purer laws. 

FIFTH BELL. 

Ring out false pride in place and blood ; 
Ring in the co/nmon love of good. 

SIXTH BELL. 

Ring out the slander and the spite ; 
Ring in the love of truth and right. 

SEVENTH BELL. 

Ring out the narrotving lust of gold ; 
Ring out the thousand ivars of old ; 

EIGHTH BELL. 

Ring out old shapes of foul disease ; 
Ring in the thotcsand years of Peace. 

NINTH BELL. 
Ring in the valiant man and free. 

The larger heart and kindlier hand ; 
Ring out the darkness of the land ; 
Ring in the Christ that is to be. 
This splendid gift was accepted on behalf of the University by the Hon- 
orable George H. Andrews, of New York, a member of the Board of Trus- 
tees, and by Lieutenant Governor Woodford. Their remarks were fol- 
lowed by an address by the Honorable Abram B. Weaver, State Superin- 
tendent of Public Instruction. 

ADDRESS OF SUPERINTENDENT WE A VER. 

MR. PRESIDENT, Ladies AND GENTLEMEN : — This numerous assem- 
bly rightly denotes an occasion of uncommon interest. I esteem it 
a favor that, by the courtesy of those in charge of this affair, I was 
a few days since invited to participate in these proceedings, representing 



oQ '^he Inauguration. 

the Department with which the institution this day inaugurated is to be 
so intimatolv, and, I trust, efficiently associated. 

We meet "at the confluence of two great currents of hberality, to celeljrate 
an event as distinguished in character, as it is rare in occurrence. The 
overflowing bounty of the nation and of an individual has gratuitously be- 
stowed a priceless'boon upon New York. An educational proposition has 
been built into an educational institution, and we are here to welcome its 
existence. What six years ago was an unsevered part of a national project, 
to establish in the several States schools for instruction in agriculture, the 
mechanic arts and military tactics ; what, in later times, in its separate ap- 
plication to our own commonwealth has been the subject of State policy 
and legislation, and what, during all that period, was the cherished enter- 
prise of one whose name need not be mentioned to be remembered, is now 
about to be realized, and more than realized, in founding the Cornell Univer- 
sity. And while the people of this locality, to which private munificence 
has attracted the national bounty, contemplate this consummation with pe- 
culiar pride and satisfaction, this rejoicing multitude is but a fractional part 
of the vastly greater number within and without this State, who to-day re- 
joice with us, that at length an institution has been opened where educa- 
tion can be prosecuted straight to a specific purpose. 

Without indulging in the laudation prompted by such an event, it is not 
extravagant to claim that an urgent and general want has been supplied by 
the facilities here provided. 

The intensely practical spirit of the age, as well as the just reward of an 
honest ambition and earnest effort for learning, demand as the result of 
Study, something different and something more than an education so gen- 
eral and inconclusive as to be only a partial preparation for any of the lead- 
ing pursuits of life, a complete preparation for none. I believe it is a just 
remark to say that the student receiving what is theoretically called a finished 
education is oftentimes entitled to commiseration instead of congratula- 
tion. Laboring through a stereotyped and uncompromising curriculum of 
study, which, by reason of its unvarying uniformity, its indefinite tendency 
and its unyielding arrangement offers no opportunity to diverge into spe- 
cial and favorite departments of learning, has failed to make one single 
stimulating appeal to his individuality, or doing so, has failed to gratify it. 
He comes forth often a martyr to, instead of a master of what he has under- 
taken — aimless as the course of study he has pursued — powerless as a 
would-be warrior overloaded with armor he knows not how to use. Such 
an education is finished, if at all, not because it is complete, but because it 
is stop]icd, — stopped at the critical and frequently fatal point of contact 
with practical pursuits, which repel and discourage scholastic vagueness, 
while they invite and employ ready tact and trained ability. 

It is not unaccountable that they who devote themselves most exclusively 
and perhaps most successfully to an indiscriminate course of study, are so 
commonly distanced in the race ; nor is it a miracle that self-made men are 
so commonly the best made men. 

The young students of this State are to be congratulated that here will 
be presented opportunities to consult their tastes and preferences in study, 
and to build themselves up to the full stature of perfect manhood, according 
to the plan suggested by their own natures and inclinations. 

Wliat has already been done in the prosecution of this enterprise, and 
the assurance of what is yet to be accomplished, the stately structures that 



Superintendent Weaver s Address. 3 1 

adorn these hills with architectural beauty, the appliances for the work and 
the array of professional talent to conduct it, all these provisions indicate 
the wisdom of the plan which has been adopted and thus far pursued. 
These things demonstrate that the people of this State consulted their true 
interest when, in view of the proposition to divide and distribute the con- 
gressional grant, they resolved to preserve the unity of the fund, augment 
it by the proffered private bounty and build for themselves a University. 
The time had arrived and the opportunity was present when the wide space 
lying between the boundaries of elementary instruction, which it is the gen- 
erous policy of the State in some measure to provide for all, and the do- 
main of collegiate education, entered by comparatively a few, — when that 
broad field filled with workers and producers, the strength and energy of 
the State, could be and properly was supplied with an institution in which 
theory and practice are to go hand in hand ; whence labor and learning 
wedded, are to be sent into the world to work together, and to help each 
other ; an institution allied to the people not less by its adaptation to their 
daily industries and wants, than by the representative character of its schol- 
arships. 

By the establishment of this institution the framework of our educational 
system, if not complete, presents a symmetrical structure, which, in the 
breadth of its plan, in the fulness of its proportions, in the natural and or- 
derly arrangement of its parts, and in its progressive tendency reaches far 
toward completion. 

As the sources of general intelligence, and as the broad foundation of the 
whole superstructure — a foundation embedded in the settled sentiments of 
an enlightened people — free public schools stud the State. Interspersed 
among and surrounding these normal and training schools have been planted 
— educational arsenals to supply the munitions for the cause. And now, 
towering in the midst of them all, linked to them by the law of its existence 
and drawing from them the mind upon which it is to work, to be returned 
to the manifold pursuits of life, cultivated, ijnproved, purified, disciplined, 
and fitted for service, as nature draws from your abounding lakes and rivers 
up to her higher laboratory the element that she eends down again in fertil- 
izing showers upon your fruitful hillsides and productive valleys, \\e are to 
have a University which, as a preparation for the beginning of its work, has 
already stretched forth its young energies and resources and drawn to itself 
the best talent of this and other lands. 

Three imperative conditions have been impressed upon its existence, re- 
quiring instruction in three special departments. 

First in order and consequence comes the great producing pursuit of our 
State and country ; the pursuit that converts our broad territory into fruit- 
ful fields and farms ; the pursuit that moves the plow, that operates our 
railroads, that freights our ships — agriculture, that great interest which 
supports our commerce and manufactures and feeds our people. 

Next to this, and kindred to all industrial pursuits come the mechanic 
arts and their practical application. Associated with these and fitly sup- 
plementing them, instruction in military tactics is to provide the elements 
of a preserving power, which, I trust, whenever exerted, shall keep this 
commonwealth an integral part of a national unit. 

Let these three cardinal purposes be strictly adhered to. Let this triple 
design be faithfully fulfilled. Let it ever be remembered and observed that 
this institution belongs to no class, no sect, no creed, no party, but owes its 



02 T'he Inauguration. 

undivided service, as it does its origin, to the whole people who created it, 
and the Cornell University will stand as firm and secure as this rock-built hill 
selected for its home, with a career before it as clear, continuous and unbro- 
ken as the silvery way Cayuga stretches from its base. 

The presiding officer then introduced to the assemblage Louis Agassiz, 
LL. D., anon-resident professor of the University. 

ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR AGASSIZ. 

MR. Chairman, Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees of the 
Cornell University, my fellow Professors of the fac- 
ulty NOW ORGANIZED AND GOING INTO OPERATION, LADIES 
AND Gentlemen: — I am very sorry to appear before you without having 
had time to shake from my feet the dust of a journey of six thousand 
miles. I feel that my thoughts are hardly worth your attention, for I am 
full of recollections of the Rocky Mountains. 

I wish this were a fitting time and place to speak of nature, its beauties, 
and its instruction, for I should know then that I was upon my own 
ground. But this is an occasion of great importance and personal im- 
pressions ought not to disturb these ceremonies — ceremonies which will 
make a lasting impression, not only upon those who liave witnessed them, 
but upon the whole country. There is rising an institution of learning such 
as never existed before. I have been a teacher long enough to know what 
schools, colleges, academies and universities are, and what they can do, and 
what they have done, but I trust that this University will Ao something 
more. It starts on a firm basis ; it starts with a prosperity which the 
world has not contemplated before. Here we plant, for the first time, an 
institution that is to come into life free from all the trammels which have 
heretofore hindered the progress of the human intellect. This University 
has a beginning without a religious qualification. The professor of chem- 
istry is not to be asked what his creed is, but whether he is a good chem- 
ist ; the professor of anatomy is not to lay before the community his secta- 
rian predilections before he is allowed to go into the dissecting room and 
teach his students the structure of the whole animal Icingdom. And yet 
there was a time, and there are still numberless institutions where the stu- 
dent and the scholar, the man who has devoted a whole life-time to study, 
must first bow to another authority before he is allowed to teach what 
he knows, and what he knows well. This University is independ- 
ent of these impediments. It will go to its work free fi-om all such hin- 
drances, and the professor will feel that unless he is the right man and can 
stand his ground outside as well as inside of the lecture room he can have 
no place in the University. Here, then, is a chance for teachers 
which has not existed before. A number of my colleagues are apparently 
much younger than I am ; they have learned better methods than those 
under which I was taught ; they have seen the difficulties and the imperfec- 
tions under which the generation now passing away has labored. They 
break soil on a fresh ground. There is no proscription here. No absolute 
authority imposes appointed text-books on the student or on any special 
department of learning. The teacher will come before his class with his 
own tlioughts, with what he brings in his own head rather than in a stere- 
otyped print. The students will select their studies and attend the instruc- 
tion of tiie man of their choice. 



The Inauguration. 33 

These arc the great advantages v/ith which this University starts into 
life, and, let me say, I trust the example here given will react upon the edu- 
cational institutions throughout the country. Do you believe the colleges 
that carry on instruction by rote can exist long by the side of an institution 
in which everything is life and progress ? No ; if it is true to itself they 
will be forced to emulate it. I hope I shall live to see the time v\-hen all 
the old colleges will draw fresh life from this young University, when they 
will remodel their obsolete methods and come up to the mark. 

And, yet, gentlemen, I must say that I do not completely belong to this 
institution ; I am bound by the strongest ties to the oldest institution of 
learning in the country, and I know what efforts are making there to im- 
prove the university system, and bring it up to the highest educational 
standard. I know therefore what are the obstacles which long continued 
usages may put in the path of even the best efforts, and it is from my own 
knowledge of these difficulties that I congratulate the Trustees of Cornell 
University upon the facilities opening before them. 

One word more to the students in particular. They also have a work to 
do in this new undertaking. Let them be an example to the students of 
other institutions where the personal discipline is far more stringent than 
here. Here the young men are to be treated like men and not like boys, at 
an early age, perhaps at too early an age, some may think. We ap)ieal 
therefore to them to show themselves worthy of this confidence, and thus 
help in emancipating their fellow students throughout the world. The stu- 
dents of this University are in a position to do this. 

I say, therefore, in conclusion, that to-day a new era for public education 
opens, and that, henceforth, the name of Cornell will stand in history as 
one of the greatest benefactors, not only of America, but of humanity. 

Professor Agassiz was followed by the Honorable George William Cur- 
tis, non-resident Professor of Recent Literature. 

ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR CURTIS. 

■r. President, Gentlemen of the Board, my Coj.i.eagues, res- 
ident AND non-resident, LaDIES AND GENTLEMEN : — It is said 
that when Burke, and Pitt, and Fox contended in debate in the Brit- 
ish Parliament, they were so supremely masters that they had the arena to 
themselves — no one else dared to speak when they had spoken ; but it was 
found that from time to time some member, mindless of what had gone be- 
fore, rose to his feet in apparent forgetfulness and abandoned himself to the 
expression of his own thought, and when, upon a certain occasion, one cer- 
tain man was asked how he dared to speak when Burke, and Pitt, and Fox 
had spoken, his answer was, "Because I was as much interested in the 
question as they were." So, my friends, after the noble and beautiful dis- 
cussions of various kinds to which you now for many hours have listened 
to-day, if you ask me how I dare to present myself to you, although Burke, 
and Pitt, and Fox have spoken, I tell you it is because I am just as much 
interested in the question as they are. My friends, it is now just about 
ten years since I was in the City of Ann Arbor, Michigan, the seat of the 
University of Michigan, and what that University is you may gather from 
this fact, that when the alumni of the greatest and oldest University of this 
country met to celebrate their anniversary three or four years ago, in Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts, one of their own number, himself a professor and 



J.}. Thi' I luuigii ration. 

the son of .1 profcssoi: in Harvard, did not licsi'.a'.c lo say lliat llic Univer- 
sity of .Midiiij;,in most fully salisliod the needs ( f an Anieriean University. 
1 was in tliat city, and I sat at night talking- uilli my friend, a New ^"ork 
scliolar, Professor of History in^lhat institution, and one of the men who 
liave t,nven that institution it's <;reatplaee in this eountry. There, in the 
waruilh and eonlidenee of his frienilsliip, he unfolded to me his idea of the 
i^reat work that shoukl he done in the great Slate of New York. Surely, 
iie said, in the greatest Stale there should be the greatest of Universities; 
in central New N'ork there should arise a University, which, by the ampli- 
tude of its endowment and by the whole scope of its intended sphere, by 
the ch.aracler of the studies in the whole sco])e of its curriculum, should 
satisfy the wants of the hour. More than that, said he, it shduld begin at 
the beginning. It should lake hold of the chief interest of this country, 
which is agriculture; then it should rise — step by step, grade by grade — 
until it fullilled the highest ideal of what a University could be. It was also 
his intention tha! there should be no man, wherever he might be — on the 
other side of the ocean or on this side — who miglit be a fitting teacher of 
men, who shoukl not be drawn within the sphere of that University. Un- 
til the hour was late this young scholar dreamed ak)ud to me these ilrcams; 
and, at the close, at our parting, our consolation vras that we lived in a 
country that was open to every generous idea, and that his dream one day 
might he realized was still a possibility. Ten years ago, and why are we here ? 
Why am I speaking to you ? What is this building that we see ? What 
are these bells we hear ? What are these chimes, whose musical echo lin- 
gers and will always linger in your hearts? Why, on this autunni day, 
when every crop is in its perfection, when all the sweet blossoms of 
your orchards are now glowing in gorgeous jiiles of fruit, all the grain 
dropped by you in the furrows is no^^' piled and to be ]iiled in the granaries 
of the world — why, in this spot, on this autumn day, the vision of that New 
York scholar has come true. There in noble, stone, here scattered through 
this village of yours, here upon these everlasting hills, founded now, and 
v.ith these hills to endure, more wonderful than the palace of .Vladdin, you 
behold, you realize the dream of the scholar of the Alichigan Univcrsitv, 
your honored iM-esident, -Andrew D. White. Well, my friends, to these 
great results three things have conspired ; three things of which I venture to 
say that centuries will pass before they will again meet in union, k'irst, 
it was necessary to have a single brain to conceive not only the idea of the 
University, but the means of beginning it. There was necessity Hrst of all 
to find a New Yorker who had made his own money by his own toil, antl, 
having made that money, to set the fir.->t great example for all American rich 
men — this lesson that American rich men are making haste to teach the 
world, that every man of great wealth is only the almoner of CJod's bounty; 
every man of great fortune holds that fortune in trust for those upon whom, 
in the beautiful words of your Founder, this morning, "Fortune has omit- 
ted to smile." This man was the first necessity of lliis enterprise, in this 
movement, and was found. In the Imperial State, although many names 
are imperial, and in the history of this country many names are graven deep 
forever upon the public heart, 'believe me, no name is more deejily graven, 
no name is now more truly honored, no name, by countless generations 
hereafter, will be more sincerely lauded, than the man who has grown up 
witli you, doing his work here as you have done your work. The second 
condition for the great work was the sympathy of the people of the United 



The Iiuutgiiratton. 35 

States, which was expressed by iheh- represenlatives in Congress in grant- 
ing the enormous land fund. It inspired the representatives of all the 
States, and the representatives of the people in tlie Congress of the United 
Stales. Let us always remember that this sympathy, which ins])ired abso- 
lutely the men who represented us in Congress and in the Legi>lature to 
fiivor this work, tlemands of us to take care lest such sympathy should fitil, 
and to see that the great cause of education shall be held secure. Fel- 
low citizens, more than the foundation with the ample endowments, more 
than the sympathy that granted the fund in Congress was necessary to this 
work, and that was a man of .skill to know how that work should be organ- 
ized, and the energizing brain to undertake that organization. Out of one 
hundred men, out of hvc hundred men who could be capable presidents of 
colleges, there are few men, believe me, who could take hold of an enter- 
prise like this University from its inception, go hand in hand and heart to 
heart with its Founder on the one hand, and hand hand in and heart to heart 
with all the noblest advances and scholarship of the time on the other, 
both hand in hand, with their hearts beating with the moving heart of the 
humanity of this day. There are few men in whom ccjuld be found the unity 
to complete the other requirements — such as that practical skill and sagacity 
which were to secure for the ample fund of this University one hundred 
cents worth for every dollar of the fund; and when the Board of Trustees 
selected the present I^resident, that Board of Trustees needed no other cre- 
dentials for uniting upon that one man than the skill evinced in developing 
the idea of its Founder. Why, fellow citizens, we have the Founder, and 
with the sympathy of the people, and with the energizing head of your 
President, you have the three great and unusual elements out of \\hich all 
this work sprung. And why am I here, wliv are you here, when the giant 
stands ready with his own ample endcnvment, wi'.h his various ana accom- 
plished professorships, v.dth his head ihougluful and sympathetic? Why 
stand we here at this moment as tho.e great hands begin to move, as 
those living lips begin to speak, but that we may lift our hands and our hearts 
in prayer and invoke God's blessing upon this beneficent giant who is be- 
ginning to run the race? .\ntl what shall that race be ? Why, fellow citi- 
izens, the motto that was \ittered tiiis morning was that this University 
u'ould give instruction to any man in any department of knowlcige. That 
is tiic great function in anv Uni\-ersitv, and tliat slia'.l be fullilled. No 
professor in any college across the sea, no exjierl in any of the older Uni- 
versities in this lanfl, shall be able to make a new experimental step in 
science, but it shall be the boast of this University that that experiment 
shall, upon this hill in Ithaca, instantly be provided for. This is the hrst 
great work of this L'niversity — that it shall give the am]>!esl f.iciliiies to 
everyone that shall ask for them to prosecute that work. il siiall also 
be the perpetual shrine for the highest learning, and fir those who are in- 
structed, and for those wl o love knowledge f )r itself, who scr\e tiutli 
only for the sake of truth, r.nd look no farther tlian knowle<lgo for it- am- 
plest reward. Mere begin the crystal drops of this stream, the stream of 
the truest and highest j^hilosophy. It gushes from these rocky hill sides. 
''' Fons aijuo: dulcis noiiicii ciii Arctlnisa c.<l." .\nd now 1 come to the still 
liigher services that this L'niversity shall |H_'rform, not nnly to the teacher.-, 
and the taught, not onlv for tlie scholar in himself, im! alsi> to make an in- 
telligent American citiz-^n — liie greatest work that mir system of universi- 
ties achieves. Fellow citizens, reinember this, it is not many ye.irs since a 



36 The Inauguration. 

meeting in Faneuil Hall, in Boston, was assembled to discuss a subject 
iluit was in those days extremely unpojiular. A rabble of sailors was 
hired to break up the meeting. In vain those who had called the meeting 
tried to speak ; the sadors danced; the sailors sang. They could not be 
heard. In vain they appealed in tlie name of New England; in the name 
and honor of Boston boys; in the name of free speech. In vain they ap- 
pealed. Tiie sailors danced and the sailors sang, and no word of the 
eloquent orators could be heard. At last, in the midst of the jolly sail- 
ors, a man of grand aspect arose ; upon which, thinking they had found 
a champion among themselves, the sailors hushed for a moment to 
hear. "Well, fellow citizens," began the unforseen orator, "well, fellow 
citizens, I wouldn't stop if I hadn't a mind to." The sailors laughed and 
cheered and sang; but it was clear that the speaker had not finished, so 
they grew silent once more. " No, fellow citizens, if I were you I wouldn't 
stop if I hadn't a mind to; but, if I were you, I 'd have a mind to. Not 
because you aic IJoston 1 oys ; not because you are citizens of Massachu- 
setts; but because you are men, and men everywhere like to see fair play." 
'1 hat man concpiered. He had conquered liecause lie had made an appeal 
to the great ]:)ublic opinion, and one that touched the ground on which they 
all stood. Now, precisely what that meeting could do the people of this 
country can do. We can do precisely what we have a mind to, and there- 
fore, it is of vast im|jortance that we have a mind to do those things that 
are right, just and fair for all men. Tiierefore the highest function of any 
institution of learning is so to train the young men of this country that we 
shall have not only the government of public opinion, but of an enlightened 
jiublic opinion. The republic can only lie safe among intelligent men. 
For a republic of all the people in this country is now beyond question; 
though we may sigh still for the old castles, and the old dreams, the fact is 
certain, forever cei-tain, that all the ])eople of this country are to govern 
themselves. Tiierefore it is for your interest and the interest of every man, 
^yoma^, and child in this country, that the great ]3ublic opinion shall be en- 
liglUeneil upon every point f;nm institutions of this kind. The best sys- 
tem of pul)lic instiuction, and which lias its best representatives here be- 
f ire you tiiis afternoon, is that, by means of which the government of the Re- 
pulilic is to l)e, wliat it always must be if the Republic is secure, a govern- 
ment of intelligent men. 

And now, fellow citizens, the liour has come to end the day which shall 
never return again, the day which we shall all remember. The hour has 
come when this institution is to jiass under those influences which per- 
form their daily services in our life. The hour has come when all that 
has been contemplated blossoms into actual operation, and we stand here 
only for one purpose. By a kindness, for which I cannot be enough 
grateful, I have been allowed to speak here the concluding words. .\nd 
while our great universities grow up like tender jilants, while they arc 
reared with infinite care, with yearning pain, year after year unfolding into 
perfection, here is our University, our " Cornell," like the man-of-war, 
all its sails set, its rigging full and complete from stem to stern, its crew 
'^mbarked, its passengers all ready and aboard; and even while I speak to 
you, even as the autumn sun sets in the west, it begins to glide over the 
waves as it goes forlli rejoicing, every stitcli of canvas sjiread, all its colors 
flying, its musical bells ringing, its heartstrings beating with hope and joy. 
I speak for you, I speak for llie State, I sjieak for this country, all repr'e- 



Thf In.niiuration, ij 

sen ted in this great eivtoAvment, \vlii;ii I miv :— God bless the ship! Clod 
bisss the buikkr! Clod bless the chosL-n captain! God bless the picked 
crew! And, gentlemen undergraduates, never to be forgotten, may God 
bless all the passengers! 

At the close of Professor Curtis's address the museums and laboratories 
of the University were thrown o])en to the many thousands who had wit- 
nessed the day's proceedings. With the inspection of the collections, build- 
ings and grounds the cerem')nies of the Inauguration came to an end, and 
on the following Monday the lectures and class exercises gf the first Tii. 
roester began. 






Recount of tl)c ^^rocccbings 



AT THE 



INAUGURATION 



October yth 1868 



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AT THE UNIFERSHT PRESS 

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